Expert: DM - 12/1/2009

Question
QUESTION: Dear sir, can you tell me if any of the Rascals of the Our Gang films went on to have successful careeers after leaving Our Gang?
Also, I understand after Hal Roach sold the series that distributors packaged them under other names. What other names were they sold as?

ANSWER: Dear William,

Thank you for asking such an interesting question. It's a coincidence that you approached me about this, as I was recently asked to co-write "Otay!" The Billy "Buckwheat" Thomas Story, along with Bill Thomas, Jr., his son. We are working on the biography and will have it out in 2010.

Several of the Our Gang/Little Rascals child actors went on to successful careers in show business. "Buckwheat" (Billy Thomas) worked as a film cutter/editor at Technicolor. Darla Hood was well-known for her voice, and she had a band called Darla Hood and the Enchanters. Darla also found employment as a sought-after voice actress on TV Commercials and was the voice of Charlie the Tuna on those commercials. The most successful of them all was Jackie Cooper, who was in the Our Gang films briefly, and then went on to a long career as an actor and director. Also, Robert "Bobby" Blake resurfaced as an adult with a popular TV series and appeared in many motion pictures. Spanky McFarland hosted several television shows in the 1950s and 1960s, but largely worked outside the industry as an adult.  

Not all the child actors from Our Gang were so lucky. Many of them died early through unfortunate circumstances, but the majority of them went on to live nearly normal private lives with modest careers removed from showbusiness.

Those short comedy films were originally called Our Gang. When they were recirculated in the 1950s and after on television, they were retitled The Little Rascals, and some of them were re-edited a little. Nowadays, many of the films were available on DVD in their original format without any changes.

Leonard Maltin wrote a wonderful book on Our Gang and The Little Rascals, a richly researched work on the entire series from the silent era to the later ones in the 1940s. If you have a strong interest to learn more about them, I suggest you see if your local library has that book, or they could procure it for you through their InterLibrary Loan program.

If there's anything else I can help answer, please let me know.

Sincerely,
David W. Menefee
Author


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you very much for your help, sir. Yes, I do have the very wonderful Leonard Maltin book you mentioned which I am currently using to build an expansive Our Gang site at ourgang.wikia.com to not only detail the shorts and actors in the series, but to paint a picture of the Rascal world itself with bios of the characters themselves. (Most of the Rascal sites out there have not been edited or expanded on in YEARS) If you would like to check it out and lend any more detail to it, I hope you will do so. Thank you very much.

Answer
Dear William,
Thank you for your follow-up to the thread of our discussion. I appreciate your efforts with expanding the Our Gang body of information. Please keep me informed about your web site, especially once you have it finished. My publisher would be kind enough to send you a couple of copies of "Otay!" The Billy "Buckwheat" Thomas Story for you to perhaps use as promotional items in some kind of a contest that would engage your viewers. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.
 
Sincerely,
David Menefee
PO BOX 181662
Dallas, TX. 75218
USA

Office: 214.324.4621
E-mail: davemenefee@aol.com
Web: www.thegreatstars.com


Author
Sarah Bernhardt in the Theater of Films and Sound Recordings
The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era
The First Male Stars: Men of the Silent Era
Richard Barthelmess: A Life in Pictures
George O'Brien: A Man's Man in Hollywood
Texting Harry (with Connie Podesta)
A Craving for Travel II (with Jim Strong)
The Unflappable Irving Link (with Ferdinand Hauslein, Jr.)
"Otay!" The Billy "Buckwheat " Thomas Story (with William Thomas, Jr.)
Brothers of the Storm
The Remarkable Mr. Messing
Wally: The True Wallace Reid Story